X-Git-Url: http://pere.pagekite.me/gitweb/homepage.git/blobdiff_plain/9d8c4b213b28ab3ee1b4f2706bbb1eee4499ba06..c3d2d38dfcee17462b1c85ca064024346a3d1ae9:/blog/archive/2012/04/index.html diff --git a/blog/archive/2012/04/index.html b/blog/archive/2012/04/index.html index 95be7a55c4..369a428530 100644 --- a/blog/archive/2012/04/index.html +++ b/blog/archive/2012/04/index.html @@ -23,94 +23,345 @@
- Debian Edu interview: Wolfgang Schweer + Cutting it short - and picking the right tool for the job
- 1st April 2012 + 30th April 2012
-

Germany is a core area for the -Debian Edu and Skolelinux -user community, and this time I managed to get hold of Wolfgang -Schweer, a valuable contributor to the project from Germany. +

+

+ +

I normally cut my hair short, and my tool of choice has been a +common hair/beard cutter, bought in a electrical shop here in Norway. +But the last ones have not really been up to the task. My last +cutter, some model from Braun, could only cut a few of my hairs at the +time, and cutting my head took forever. And the one before that did +not work very well either. We have looked for something better for a +while, but it was not until I ended up visiting a hairdresser that we +discovered that there are indeed better tools available. But these +are not marketed and sold to "regular consumers". The hair saloons +can get them through their suppliers, but their suppliers only sell +companies. The models they sell, are very different from the ones +available from Elkjøp and Lefdal. The main difference is their +efficiency. It would cut my hair in 5 minutes, instead of the 30-40 +minutes required by my impotent Braun. The hairdresser I visited had +a Panasonic ER160, which unfortunately is no longer available from the +producer. But I found it had a successor, the Panasonic ER1611.

+ +

The next step was to find somewhere to buy it. This was not +straight forward. The list of suppliers I got from the hairdresser +did not want to sell anything to me. But searching for the model on +the web we found a supplier in Norway willing to sell it to us for +around NOK 4000,-. This was a bit much. We kept searching and +finally found a Danish supplier +selling +it for around NOK 1800,-. We ordered one, and it arrived a few +days ago.

+ +

The instructions said it had to charge for 8 hours when we started +to use it, so we left it charging over night. Normally it will only +need one hour to charge. The following evening we successfully tested +it, and I can warmly recommend it to anyone looking for a real hair +cutter. The ones we have used until now have been hair cutter +toys.

-

Who are you, and how do you spend your days?

+
+
+ + + Tags: english. + + +
+
+
+ +
+
+ NUUGs leverer høringsuttalelse om v3.1 av statens referansekatalog +
+
+ 27th April 2012 +
+
+

NUUG-styremedlem Hans-Petter Fjeld +meldte +nettopp at han har sendt inn NUUGs +høringsuttalelse angående Difi sin standardkatalog v3.1. Jeg er veldig +glad for at så mange bidro og sikret at vår stemme blir hørt i denne +høringen. Anbefaler alle å lese våre +to +sider med innspill.

-

I've studied Mathematics at the university 'Ruhr-Universität' in -Bochum, Germany. Since 1981 I'm working as a teacher at the school -"Westfalen-Kolleg -Dortmund", a second chance school. Here, young adults is given -the opportunity to get further education in order to do the school -examination 'Abitur', which will allow to study at a university. This -second chance is of value for those who want a better job perspective -or failed to get a higher school examination being teens.

+
+
+ + + Tags: norsk, nuug, standard. + + +
+
+
+ +
+
+ HTC One X - Your video? What do you mean? +
+
+ 26th April 2012 +
+
+

In an +article today published by Computerworld Norway, the photographer +Eirik Helland Urke reports +that the video editor application included with +HTC One +X have some quite surprising terms of use. The article is mostly +based on the twitter message from mister Urke, stating: -

Besides teaching I was involved in developing online courses for a -blended learning project called 'abitur-online.nrw' and in some other -information technology related projects. For about ten years I've been -teacher and coordinator for the 'abitur-online' project at my -school. Being now in my early sixties, I've decided to leave school at -the end of April this year.

+

+"Drøy +brukeravtale: HTC kan bruke MINE redigerte videoer kommersielt. Selv +kan jeg KUN bruke dem privat." +

-

How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu -project?

+

I quickly translated it to this English message:

-

The first information about Skolelinux must have come to my -attention years ago and somehow related to LTSP (Linux Terminal Server -Project). At school, we had set up a network at the beginning of 1997 -using Suse Linux on the desktop, replacing a Novell network. Since -2002, we used old machines from the city council of Dortmund as thin -clients (LTSP, later Ubuntu/Lessdisks) cause new hardware was out of -reach. At home I'm using Debian since years and - subscribed to the -Debian news letter - heard from time to time about Skolelinux. About -two years ago I proposed to replace the (somehow undocumented and only -known to me) system at school by a well known Debian based system: -Skolelinux.

+

+"Arrogant user agreement: HTC can use MY edited videos +commercially. Although I can ONLY use them privately." +

-

Students and teachers appreciated the new system because of a -better look and feel and an enhanced access to local media on thin -clients. The possibility to alter and/or reset passwords using a GUI -was welcomed, too. Being able to do administrative tasks using a GUI -and to easily set up workstations using PXE was of very high value for -the admin teachers.

+

I've been unable to find the text of the license term myself, but +suspect it is a variation of the MPEG-LA terms I +discovered +with my Canon IXUS 130. The HTC One X specification specifies that +the recording format of the phone is .amr for audio and .mp3 for +video. AMR is +Adaptive +Multi-Rate audio codec with patents which according to the +Wikipedia article require an license agreement with +VoiceAge. MP4 is +MPEG4 with +H.264, which according to Wikipedia require a licence agreement +with MPEG-LA.

+ +

I know why I prefer +free and open +standards also for video.

-

What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian -Edu?

+
+
+ + + Tags: digistan, english, multimedia, personvern, standard, video, web. + + +
+
+
+ +
+
+ Holder de ord og NUUG lanserer testtjeneste med stortingsinformasjon +
+
+ 22nd April 2012 +
+
+

I +januar +i fjor startet vi i NUUG arbeid med å gjøre informasjon om hvem +som har stemt hva på Stortinget +enklere tilgjengelig. I løpet av få måneder fant vi sammen med +organisasjonen Holder de ord +som arbeidet mot et lignende mål.

+ +

Siden den gang har vi fått tak i maskinelt lesbart informasjon om +hvem som stemte hva mellom 1990 og våren 2010, og tilgang til +stortingets nye datatjeneste som har informasjon fra høsten 2011 til i +dag. Det gjenstår litt arbeid med det første datasettet, men +datasettet fra høsten 2011 er klart til bruk. Begge datasettene er +tilgjengelig via +git.

+ +

På +Go Open i morgen lanserer +NUUG sammen med Holder de ord en +test-tjeneste som viser hva som er og blir behandlet på Stortinget og +hvem som har stemt hva siden oktober i fjor. Du får herved mulighet +til å ta en sniktitt.

-

It's open source, easy to set up, stable and flexible due to it's -Debian base. It integrates LTSP out-of-the-box. And it is documented! -So it was a perfect choice.

+
+
+ + + Tags: norsk, nuug, stortinget. + + +
+
+
+ +
+
+ RAND terms - non-reasonable and discriminatory +
+
+ 19th April 2012 +
+
+

Here in Norway, the + Ministry of +Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs is behind +a directory of +standards that are recommended or mandatory for use by the +government. When the directory was created, the people behind it made +an effort to ensure that everyone would be able to implement the +standards and compete on equal terms to supply software and solutions +to the government. Free software and non-free software could compete +on the same level.

+ +

But recently, some standards with RAND +(Reasonable +And Non-Discriminatory) terms have made their way into the +directory. And while this might not sound too bad, the fact is that +standard specifications with RAND terms often block free software from +implementing them. The reasonable part of RAND mean that the cost per +user/unit is low,and the non-discriminatory part mean that everyone +willing to pay will get a license. Both sound great in theory. In +practice, to get such license one need to be able to count users, and +be able to pay a small amount of money per unit or user. By +definition, users of free software do not need to register their use. +So counting users or units is not possible for free software projects. +And given that people will use the software without handing any money +to the author, it is not really economically possible for a free +software author to pay a small amount of money to license the rights +to implement a standard when the income available is zero. The result +in these situations is that free software are locked out from +implementing standards with RAND terms.

+ +

Because of this, when I see someone claiming the terms of a +standard is reasonable and non-discriminatory, all I can think of is +how this really is non-reasonable and discriminatory. Because free +software developers are working in a global market, it does not really +help to know that software patents are not supposed to be enforceable +in Norway. The patent regimes in other countries affect us even here. +I really hope the people behind the standard directory will pay more +attention to these issues in the future.

+ +

You can find more on the issues with RAND, FRAND and RAND-Z terms +from Simon Phipps +(RAND: +Not So Reasonable?).

+ +

Update 2012-04-21: Just came across a +blog +post from Glyn Moody over at Computer World UK warning about the +same issue, and urging people to speak out to the UK government. I +can only urge Norwegian users to do the same for +the +hearing taking place at the moment (respond before 2012-04-27). +It proposes to require video conferencing standards including +specifications with RAND terms.

-

Being open source, there are no license problems and so it's -possible to point teachers and students to programs like -OpenOffice.org, ViewYourMind (mind mapping) and The Gimp. It's of -high value to be able to adapt parts of the system to special needs of -a school and to choose where to get support for this.

+
+
+ + + Tags: english, multimedia, nuug, standard, video. + + +
+
+
+ +
+
+ Forskning: "GPL gir lokal frihet og kontroll gjennom omfordeling av makt fra produsent til bruker" +
+
+ 15th April 2012 +
+
+

Da jeg googlet etter noe annet kom jeg tilfeldigvis over +en +hovedfagsoppgave ved Universitetet i Oslo som diskuterer verdien +av GPLs fire friheter for brukerne av IT-systemer. Jeg ble fascinert +over det som presenteres der. Her er sammendraget:

-

What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian -Edu?

+

-

Nothing yet.

+

Motivasjonen til å skrive denne oppgaven er en personlig undring +over hvorfor det primært, og ofte eksklusivt, fokuseres på det +økonomiske aspektet ved utredninger om fri programvare er et godt valg +for det offentlige. Fri og produsenteid programvare bygger på +fundamentalt forskjellige ideologier som kan ha implikasjoner utover +økonomiske kostnader. Kunnskapskulturen som er med på å definere fri +programvare er basert på åpenhet, og er en verdi i seg selv.

-

Which free software do you use daily?

+

Oppgavens tema er programvarelisensen GPL og frihet. GPL-lisensiert +programvare gir visse friheter i forhold til produsenteid +programvare. Mitt spørsmål er om, og eventuelt i hvilken utstrekning, +disse frihetene blir benyttet av ulike brukere og hvordan de +manifesterer seg for disse brukerne. Sentrale spørsmål i oppgaven +er:

-

At home (Debian Sid with Gnome Desktop): Iceweasel, LibreOffice, -Mutt, Gedit, Document Viewer, Midnight Commander, flpsed (PDF -Annotator). At school (Skolelinux Lenny): Iceweasel, Gedit, -LibreOffice.

+
    +
  • Hvordan fordeles handlekraft gjennom lisensieringen av programvaren?
    • +
  • Hvilke konsekvenser har programvarelisensen for de ulike brukere?
    • +
-

Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to -get schools to use free software?

+

Fri programvare gir blant annet brukeren mulighet til å studere og +modifisere kildekoden. Denne formen for frihet erverves gjennom +kunnskap og krever at brukeren også er en ekspert. Hva skjer med +frihetene til GPL når sluttbrukeren er en annen? Dette diskuteres i +dialog med informantene.

+ +

Jeg har i denne oppgaven samlet inn intervjudata fra IKT-ansvarlige +ved grunnskolene i Nittedal kommune, driftsansvarlig og IKT-veilederen +for skolene i kommunen, samt IKT-koordinator for utdanning i Akershus +fylkeskommune og bokmåloversettere av OpenOffice.org. Den empiriske +delen av oppgaven er delt inn i to seksjoner; den første omhandler +operativsystemet Skolelinux, den andre kontorprogrampakken +OpenOffice.org.

+ +

Som vi vil se gir GPL lokal frihet og kontroll gjennom omfordeling +av makt fra produsent til bruker. Brukerens makt analyseres gjennom +begrepene brukermedvirkning og handlingsfrihet. Det blir også lagt +vekt på strukturelle forhold rundt bruken av teknologi, og spesielt de +økonomiske begrepene nettverkseksternaliteter, innlåsing og +stiavhengighet. Dette er begreper av spesiell nytte når objektet som +omsettes eller distribueres er et kommunikasjonsprodukt, fordi verdien +til et slikt gode for en potensiell bruker avhenger av antall +eksisterende brukere av godet. I tilknytning til denne problematikken +inneholder oppgaven også en diskusjon rundt åpne standarder og +formater.

+ +

Oppgaven konkluderer med at de «fire frihetene» som GPL-lisensen er +laget for å beskytte er av avgjørende betydning for bruken av +OpenOffice.org og Skolelinux, i Akershus fylkeskommune såvel som i +skolene i Nittedal. Distribusjonen av handlekraft er ikke helt +symmetrisk. Det er først og fremst de profesjonelle utviklerne i +Skolelinux som direkte kan nyttiggjøre seg friheten til å endre kode, +mens en sluttbruker som Nittedal kommune nyttiggjør seg den økonomiske +friheten til å kunne distribuere programmene. Det er imidlertid også +slik at ingen aktør klarer seg uten alle disse «frihetene».

+

+ +

Jeg fant også en masteroppgave fra 2006, men der ligger ikke +komplett oppgave tilgjengelig. På tide å holde et øye med +Skolelinux-søket +til DUO...

-

Some time ago I thought it was enough to tell people about it. But -that doesn't seem to work quite well. Now I concentrate on those more -interested and hope to get multiplicators that way.

- Tags: debian edu, english, intervju. + Tags: debian edu, norsk.
@@ -119,25 +370,91 @@ interested and hope to get multiplicators that way.

- Debian Edu in the Linux Weekly News + Debian Edu interview: Andreas Mundt
- 5th April 2012 + 15th April 2012
-

About two weeks ago, I was interviewed via email about -Debian Edu and Skolelinux by -Bruce Byfield in Linux Weekly News. The result was made public for -non-subscribers today. I am pleased to see liked our Linux solution -for schools. Check out his article -Debian Edu/Skolelinux: A -distribution for education if you want to learn more.

+

Behind Debian Edu and +Skolelinux there are a lot of people doing the hard work of +setting together all the pieces. This time I present to you Andreas +Mundt, who have been part of the technical development team several +years. He was also a key contributor in getting GOsa and Kerberos set +up in the recently released +Debian +Edu Squeeze version.

+ +

Who are you, and how do you spend your days?

+ +

My name is Andreas Mundt, I grew up in south Germany. After +studying Physics I spent several years at university doing research in +Quantum Optics. After that I worked some years in an optics company. +Finally I decided to turn over a new leaf in my life and started +teaching 10 to 19 years old kids at school. I teach math, physics, +information technology and science/technology.

+ +

How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu +project?

+ +

Already before I switched to teaching, I followed the Debian Edu +project because of my interest in education and Debian. Within the +qualification/training period for the teaching, I started +contributing.

+ +

What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian +Edu?

+ +

The advantages of Debian Edu are the well known name, the +out-of-the-box philosophy and of course the great free software of the +Debian Project!

+ +

What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian +Edu?

+ +

As every coin has two sides, the out-of-the-box philosophy has its +downside, too. In my opinion, it is hard to modify and tweak the +setup, if you need or want that. Further more, it is not easily +possible to upgrade the system to a new release. It takes much too +long after a Debian release to prepare the -Edu release, perhaps +because the number of developers working on the core of the code is +rather small and often busy elsewhere.

+ +

The Debian LAN +project might fill the use case of a more flexible system.

+ +

Which free software do you use daily?

+ +

I am only using non-free software if I am forced to and run Debian +on all my machines. For documents I prefer LaTeX and PGF/TikZ, then +mutt and iceweasel for email respectively web browsing. At school I +have Arduino and Fritzing in use for a micro controller project.

+ +

Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to +get schools to use free software?

+ +

One of the major problems is the vendor lock-in from top to bottom: +Especially in combination with ignorant government employees and +politicians, this works out great for the "market-leader". The school +administration here in Baden-Wuerttemberg is occupied by that vendor. +Documents have to be prepared in non-free, proprietary formats. Even +free browsers do not work for the school administration. Publishers +of school books provide software only for proprietary platforms.

+ +

To change this, political work is very important. Parts of the +political spectrum have become aware of the problem in the last years. +However it takes quite some time and courageous politicians to 'free' +the system. There is currently some discussion about "Open Data" and +"Free/Open Standards". I am not sure if all the involved parties have +a clue about the potential of these ideas, and probably only a +fraction takes them seriously. However it might slowly make free +software and the philosophy behind it more known and popular.

- Tags: debian edu, english. + Tags: debian edu, english, intervju.
@@ -146,64 +463,23 @@ distribution for education if you want to learn more.

- Why the KDE menu is slow when /usr/ is NFS mounted - and a workaround + Jeg skal på konferansen Go Open 2012
- 6th April 2012 + 13th April 2012
-

Recently I have spent time with -Skolelinux Drift AS on speeding -up a Debian Edu / Skolelinux -Lenny installation using LTSP diskless workstations, and in the -process I discovered something very surprising. The reason the KDE -menu was responding slow when using it for the first time, was mostly -due to the way KDE find application icons. I discovered that showing -the Multimedia menu would cause more than 20 000 IP packages to be -passed between the LTSP client and the NFS server. Most of these were - -NFS LOOKUP calls, resulting in a NFS3ERR_NOENT response. Because the -ping times between the client and the server were in the range 2-20 -ms, the menus would be very slow. Looking at the strace of kicker in -Lenny (or plasma-desktop i Squeeze - same problem there), I see that -the source of these NFS calls are access(2) system calls for -non-existing files. KDE can do hundreds of access(2) calls to find -one icon file. In my example, just finding the mplayer icon required -around 230 access(2) calls.

- -

The KDE code seem to search for icons using a list of icon -directories, and the list of possible directories is large. In -(almost) each directory, it look for files ending in .png, .svgz, .svg -and .xpm. The result is a very slow KDE menu when /usr/ is NFS -mounted. Showing a single sub menu may result in thousands of NFS -requests. I am not the first one to discover this. I found a -KDE bug report -from 2009 about this problem, and it is still unsolved.

- -

My solution to speed up the KDE menu was to create a package -kde-icon-cache that upon installation will look at all .desktop files -used to generate the KDE menu, find their icons, search the icon paths -for the file that KDE will end up finding at run time, and copying the -icon file to /var/lib/kde-icon-cache/. Finally, I add symlinks to -these icon files in one of the first directories where KDE will look -for them. This cut down the number of file accesses required to find -one icon from several hundred to less than 5, and make the KDE menu -almost instantaneous. I'm not quite sure where to make the package -publicly available, so for now it is only available on request.

- -

The bug report mention that this do not only affect the KDE menu -and icon handling, but also the login process. Not quite sure how to -speed up that part without replacing NFS with for example NBD, and -that is not really an option at the moment.

- -

If you got feedback on this issue, please let us know on debian-edu -(at) lists.debian.org.

+

Jeg har tenkt meg på konferansen Go +Open 2012 i Oslo 23. april. +Medlemsforeningen NUUG deler ut +prisen for fremme av fri +programvare i Norge der i år. Kommer du?

- Tags: debian edu, english. + Tags: norsk, nuug.
@@ -257,22 +533,88 @@ money on the latest hardware.

Which free software do you use daily?

-

I've been using Debian since Rex; popularity-contest says the -software that I use most is xinit, xterm, and xulrunner (in other -words, I use a distinctly retro sort of desktop).

+

I've been using Debian since Rex; popularity-contest says the +software that I use most is xinit, xterm, and xulrunner (in other +words, I use a distinctly retro sort of desktop).

+ +

Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to +get schools to use free software?

+ +

Well, I don't know. I suppose I'd be inclined to try reasoning +with the people who make the decisions, but obviously if that worked +you would hardly need a strategy.

+ +
+
+ + + Tags: debian edu, english, intervju. + + +
+
+
+ +
+
+ Why the KDE menu is slow when /usr/ is NFS mounted - and a workaround +
+
+ 6th April 2012 +
+
+

Recently I have spent time with +Skolelinux Drift AS on speeding +up a Debian Edu / Skolelinux +Lenny installation using LTSP diskless workstations, and in the +process I discovered something very surprising. The reason the KDE +menu was responding slow when using it for the first time, was mostly +due to the way KDE find application icons. I discovered that showing +the Multimedia menu would cause more than 20 000 IP packages to be +passed between the LTSP client and the NFS server. Most of these were + +NFS LOOKUP calls, resulting in a NFS3ERR_NOENT response. Because the +ping times between the client and the server were in the range 2-20 +ms, the menus would be very slow. Looking at the strace of kicker in +Lenny (or plasma-desktop i Squeeze - same problem there), I see that +the source of these NFS calls are access(2) system calls for +non-existing files. KDE can do hundreds of access(2) calls to find +one icon file. In my example, just finding the mplayer icon required +around 230 access(2) calls.

+ +

The KDE code seem to search for icons using a list of icon +directories, and the list of possible directories is large. In +(almost) each directory, it look for files ending in .png, .svgz, .svg +and .xpm. The result is a very slow KDE menu when /usr/ is NFS +mounted. Showing a single sub menu may result in thousands of NFS +requests. I am not the first one to discover this. I found a +KDE bug report +from 2009 about this problem, and it is still unsolved.

+ +

My solution to speed up the KDE menu was to create a package +kde-icon-cache that upon installation will look at all .desktop files +used to generate the KDE menu, find their icons, search the icon paths +for the file that KDE will end up finding at run time, and copying the +icon file to /var/lib/kde-icon-cache/. Finally, I add symlinks to +these icon files in one of the first directories where KDE will look +for them. This cut down the number of file accesses required to find +one icon from several hundred to less than 5, and make the KDE menu +almost instantaneous. I'm not quite sure where to make the package +publicly available, so for now it is only available on request.

-

Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to -get schools to use free software?

+

The bug report mention that this do not only affect the KDE menu +and icon handling, but also the login process. Not quite sure how to +speed up that part without replacing NFS with for example NBD, and +that is not really an option at the moment.

-

Well, I don't know. I suppose I'd be inclined to try reasoning -with the people who make the decisions, but obviously if that worked -you would hardly need a strategy.

+

If you got feedback on this issue, please let us know on debian-edu +(at) lists.debian.org.

- Tags: debian edu, english, intervju. + Tags: debian edu, english.
@@ -281,23 +623,25 @@ you would hardly need a strategy.

- Jeg skal på konferansen Go Open 2012 + Debian Edu in the Linux Weekly News
- 13th April 2012 + 5th April 2012
-

Jeg har tenkt meg på konferansen Go -Open 2012 i Oslo 23. april. -Medlemsforeningen NUUG deler ut -prisen for fremme av fri -programvare i Norge der i år. Kommer du?

+

About two weeks ago, I was interviewed via email about +Debian Edu and Skolelinux by +Bruce Byfield in Linux Weekly News. The result was made public for +non-subscribers today. I am pleased to see liked our Linux solution +for schools. Check out his article +Debian Edu/Skolelinux: A +distribution for education if you want to learn more.

- Tags: norsk, nuug. + Tags: debian edu, english.
@@ -306,85 +650,88 @@ programvare i Norge der i år. Kommer du?

- Debian Edu interview: Andreas Mundt + Debian Edu interview: Wolfgang Schweer
- 15th April 2012 + 1st April 2012
-

Behind Debian Edu and -Skolelinux there are a lot of people doing the hard work of -setting together all the pieces. This time I present to you Andreas -Mundt, who have been part of the technical development team several -years. We was also a key contributor in getting GOsa and Kerberos set -up in the recently released -Debian -Edu Squeeze version.

+

Germany is a core area for the +Debian Edu and Skolelinux +user community, and this time I managed to get hold of Wolfgang +Schweer, a valuable contributor to the project from Germany.

Who are you, and how do you spend your days?

-

My name is Andreas Mundt, I grew up in south Germany. After -studying Physics I spent several years at university doing research in -Quantum Optics. After that I worked some years in an optics company. -Finally I decided to turn over a new leaf in my life and started -teaching 10 to 19 years old kids at school. I teach math, physics, -information technology and science/technology.

+

I've studied Mathematics at the university 'Ruhr-Universität' in +Bochum, Germany. Since 1981 I'm working as a teacher at the school +"Westfalen-Kolleg +Dortmund", a second chance school. Here, young adults is given +the opportunity to get further education in order to do the school +examination 'Abitur', which will allow to study at a university. This +second chance is of value for those who want a better job perspective +or failed to get a higher school examination being teens.

+ +

Besides teaching I was involved in developing online courses for a +blended learning project called 'abitur-online.nrw' and in some other +information technology related projects. For about ten years I've been +teacher and coordinator for the 'abitur-online' project at my +school. Being now in my early sixties, I've decided to leave school at +the end of April this year.

How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu project?

-

Already before I switched to teaching, I followed the Debian Edu -project because of my interest in education and Debian. Within the -qualification/training period for the teaching, I started -contributing.

+

The first information about Skolelinux must have come to my +attention years ago and somehow related to LTSP (Linux Terminal Server +Project). At school, we had set up a network at the beginning of 1997 +using Suse Linux on the desktop, replacing a Novell network. Since +2002, we used old machines from the city council of Dortmund as thin +clients (LTSP, later Ubuntu/Lessdisks) cause new hardware was out of +reach. At home I'm using Debian since years and - subscribed to the +Debian news letter - heard from time to time about Skolelinux. About +two years ago I proposed to replace the (somehow undocumented and only +known to me) system at school by a well known Debian based system: +Skolelinux.

+ +

Students and teachers appreciated the new system because of a +better look and feel and an enhanced access to local media on thin +clients. The possibility to alter and/or reset passwords using a GUI +was welcomed, too. Being able to do administrative tasks using a GUI +and to easily set up workstations using PXE was of very high value for +the admin teachers.

What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian Edu?

-

The advantages of Debian Edu are the well known name, the -out-of-the-box philosophy and of course the great free software of the -Debian Project!

+

It's open source, easy to set up, stable and flexible due to it's +Debian base. It integrates LTSP out-of-the-box. And it is documented! +So it was a perfect choice.

+ +

Being open source, there are no license problems and so it's +possible to point teachers and students to programs like +OpenOffice.org, ViewYourMind (mind mapping) and The Gimp. It's of +high value to be able to adapt parts of the system to special needs of +a school and to choose where to get support for this.

What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian Edu?

-

As every coin has two sides, the out-of-the-box philosophy has its -downside, too. In my opinion, it is hard to modify and tweak the -setup, if you need or want that. Further more, it is not easily -possible to upgrade the system to a new release. It takes much too -long after a Debian release to prepare the -Edu release, perhaps -because the number of developers working on the core of the code is -rather small and often busy elsewhere.

- -

The Debian LAN -project might fill the use case of a more flexible system.

+

Nothing yet.

Which free software do you use daily?

-

I am only using non-free software if I am forced to and run Debian -on all my machines. For documents I prefer LaTeX and PGF/TikZ, then -mutt and iceweasel for email respectively web browsing. At school I -have Arduino and Fritzing in use for a micro controller project.

+

At home (Debian Sid with Gnome Desktop): Iceweasel, LibreOffice, +Mutt, Gedit, Document Viewer, Midnight Commander, flpsed (PDF +Annotator). At school (Skolelinux Lenny): Iceweasel, Gedit, +LibreOffice.

Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to get schools to use free software?

-

One of the major problems is the vendor lock-in from top to bottom: -Especially in combination with ignorant government employees and -politicians, this works out great for the "market-leader". The school -administration here in Baden-Wuerttemberg is occupied by that vendor. -Documents have to be prepared in non-free, proprietary formats. Even -free browsers do not work for the school administration. Publishers -of school books provide software only for proprietary platforms.

- -

To change this, political work is very important. Parts of the -political spectrum have become aware of the problem in the last years. -However it takes quite some time and courageous politicians to 'free' -the system. There is currently some discussion about "Open Data" and -"Free/Open Standards". I am not sure if all the involved parties have -a clue about the potential of these ideas, and probably only a -fraction takes them seriously. However it might slowly make free -software and the philosophy behind it more known and popular.

+

Some time ago I thought it was enough to tell people about it. But +that doesn't seem to work quite well. Now I concentrate on those more +interested and hope to get multiplicators that way.

@@ -397,96 +744,6 @@ software and the philosophy behind it more known and popular.

-
-
- Forskning: "GPL gir lokal frihet og kontroll gjennom omfordeling av makt fra produsent til bruker" -
-
- 15th April 2012 -
-
-

Da jeg googlet etter noe annet kom jeg tilfeldigvis over -en -hovedfagsoppgave ved Universitetet i Oslo som diskuterer verdien -av GPLs fire friheter for brukerne av IT-systemer. Jeg ble fascinert -over det som presenteres der. Her er sammendraget:

- -

- -

Motivasjonen til å skrive denne oppgaven er en personlig undring -over hvorfor det primært, og ofte eksklusivt, fokuseres på det -økonomiske aspektet ved utredninger om fri programvare er et godt valg -for det offentlige. Fri og produsenteid programvare bygger på -fundamentalt forskjellige ideologier som kan ha implikasjoner utover -økonomiske kostnader. Kunnskapskulturen som er med på å definere fri -programvare er basert på åpenhet, og er en verdi i seg selv.

- -

Oppgavens tema er programvarelisensen GPL og frihet. GPL-lisensiert -programvare gir visse friheter i forhold til produsenteid -programvare. Mitt spørsmål er om, og eventuelt i hvilken utstrekning, -disse frihetene blir benyttet av ulike brukere og hvordan de -manifesterer seg for disse brukerne. Sentrale spørsmål i oppgaven -er:

- -
    -
  • Hvordan fordeles handlekraft gjennom lisensieringen av programvaren?
    • -
  • Hvilke konsekvenser har programvarelisensen for de ulike brukere?
    • -
- -

Fri programvare gir blant annet brukeren mulighet til å studere og -modifisere kildekoden. Denne formen for frihet erverves gjennom -kunnskap og krever at brukeren også er en ekspert. Hva skjer med -frihetene til GPL når sluttbrukeren er en annen? Dette diskuteres i -dialog med informantene.

- -

Jeg har i denne oppgaven samlet inn intervjudata fra IKT-ansvarlige -ved grunnskolene i Nittedal kommune, driftsansvarlig og IKT-veilederen -for skolene i kommunen, samt IKT-koordinator for utdanning i Akershus -fylkeskommune og bokmåloversettere av OpenOffice.org. Den empiriske -delen av oppgaven er delt inn i to seksjoner; den første omhandler -operativsystemet Skolelinux, den andre kontorprogrampakken -OpenOffice.org.

- -

Som vi vil se gir GPL lokal frihet og kontroll gjennom omfordeling -av makt fra produsent til bruker. Brukerens makt analyseres gjennom -begrepene brukermedvirkning og handlingsfrihet. Det blir også lagt -vekt på strukturelle forhold rundt bruken av teknologi, og spesielt de -økonomiske begrepene nettverkseksternaliteter, innlåsing og -stiavhengighet. Dette er begreper av spesiell nytte når objektet som -omsettes eller distribueres er et kommunikasjonsprodukt, fordi verdien -til et slikt gode for en potensiell bruker avhenger av antall -eksisterende brukere av godet. I tilknytning til denne problematikken -inneholder oppgaven også en diskusjon rundt åpne standarder og -formater.

- -

Oppgaven konkluderer med at de «fire frihetene» som GPL-lisensen er -laget for å beskytte er av avgjørende betydning for bruken av -OpenOffice.org og Skolelinux, i Akershus fylkeskommune såvel som i -skolene i Nittedal. Distribusjonen av handlekraft er ikke helt -symmetrisk. Det er først og fremst de profesjonelle utviklerne i -Skolelinux som direkte kan nyttiggjøre seg friheten til å endre kode, -mens en sluttbruker som Nittedal kommune nyttiggjør seg den økonomiske -friheten til å kunne distribuere programmene. Det er imidlertid også -slik at ingen aktør klarer seg uten alle disse «frihetene».

-

- -

Jeg fant også en masteroppgave fra 2006, men der ligger ikke -komplett oppgave tilgjengelig. På tide å holde et øye med -Skolelinux-søket -til DUO...

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- - - Tags: debian edu, norsk. - - -
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